Hi Prof. Pfeifer and all ,
I tried several times to follow up on Prof. Pfeifer advise (see quote below) regarding the trace plot :
so after the **estimation ** command i set these commands :
… but I was not able to get the trace plot . I am getting an error as below.
Ps.
I tried only for block one,i.e:
… and I tried writing the command above after I had asked for trace plot of individual estimated parameters (and shocks)
I get the same error ( Dynare produces the trace plot for individual parameters but not the one for the posterior density) . Did I miss something pls ?
I have read the previous posts regarding the model comparisons via likelihoods ratio (and odds ratio) .
From one post of Prof. Pfeifer it seems that to compare to models estimated on different data sets , the odds ratio comparisons are not vaild (see the quote below) .
My question that follows is:
if I got two models A and B where one is a nested version of the other, and where
for the smaller model I use a data series X and Y (plus some other data which are the same in the two models)
for the bigger model I use a data series Z = X+Y (that is Z is the sum of X and Y).
The reason I do not use the extra data series on the smaller model is that the smaller model provides a variable which is counterpart to Z only (but no info on its components X or Y).
Can I still use the odds ratio comparison based on marginal densities (Laplace and ModifiedHarmonicMean) ?
Is there an alternative way of comparing these models ?
Many thanks again Profesor
Ps.
[quote]
Re: Model Comparison Bayesian Estimation (again)
Postby jpfeifer » Fri Apr 04, 2014 9:04 am
Basically all your answers are in Koop’s 2003 textbook “Bayesian Econometrics” on pages 4-5.
For Bayesian model comparison models do not need to be nested and there is a natural degrees of freedom correction. **Hence, as long as you use the same data having different parameters does not matter at all.
**[/quote]
The odds ratio is based on the marginal data density. That is the “likelihood” of observing the data given the model. A meaningful comparison involves keeping the data fixed and varying the model. Simultaneously changing the model and the data does not allow for a sensible comparison. Thus, the answer is no. Having Z being the sum of X and Y does not help, because the model only needs to account for this sum, not for the series individually.
To get some intuition, think about the models having k parameters and there being T observations. Then the bigger model with X and Y observed will have 2*T-k degrees of freedom while the smaller on with Z will only have T-k.
A technical question: When I try to find the mode (given that I already have a ‘‘FILENAME_mode.mat’’)
I get a warning like this:
Is there a warning I should care about (indeed when I get this warning, I get a **‘‘non-positive definite Hessian matrix’’ ** problem .
Where would I look to fix that problem please ?
Ps. I googled a bit and I found a script on your github (initial_estimation_checks.m ) but it is not clear to me what the problem is in this case.